Reggie Goes Green
I’ve always been interested in how much electricity I’ve been using, and where I’ve been wasting it. Yes, I can look at my electricity bill every month, but I wanted more. So, I bought the Kill A Watt (get it?!)
Basically, you plug this device into a standard 3 prong socket, and plug in other devices into that. It shows you current voltage draw, amperage, but best of all, kilowatts! There’s also a timer, as well as a kw/H meter so you can see EXACTLY how much juice you’re using for any period of time.
It just came in today, and with a few hours of use under my belt, here’s what I found.
Desktop PC
- In use: 180W
- Idle: 165-175W
- Sleep: 16W
- Off: 10W
Small space heater
- High: 1300W
- Low: 700W
- Fan: 20W
- Off: 0W
Powerbook
- Idle: 29W
For the fan, high/low is the power of the air coming out, NOT the temperature. The temperature is a separate control. Interestingly I found that regardless of what the temperature is set to (lowest to highest), the heater draws the same amount of power. So, I can make my room as toasty as I want! Just as long as it’s on low power.
Also, for my desktop computer, I normally just leave my it on and idle all day. So, Kill A Watt showed my usage at idle as 0.6 kw/H for 4 hours. When you look at it in monthly terms, that comes out to about $14, or $168 annually. Hey, that’s a lot of money wasted. By shutting down or putting it to sleep, that’s a lot of money off my monthly electric bill!
I’ve heard that the big power hogs are TVs and cable boxes, and I’ll find that out next time.
Comments
This is so cool! I’m genuinely pumped to hear your cable box & TV studies.
Wow, Reggie, this is pretty awesome/awful. I always wondered what the energy usage of my unused toys are, and now I have you as a reference. How much was that device? I might want one.
I’ve always heard you should unplug things you’re not using, so maybe this will be the empirical data that gets me to do so. I guess it’s a lot easier to do with power strips: kill a whole slew of machines at once.
It was $19 something at Amazon.
I’ll need to first get an extension cord to do the TV/cable box tests, though. The device is pretty bulky, and would block a few outlets on my power strip.
It’s pretty obvious that devices use more electricity when they’re on, rather than off. But what a lot of people don’t know is that just having something plugged in will draw at least some current. I’ve only had this thing for 12 hours, but it’s already made me more mindful of my computer usage, and I’ve been more attentive to turning lights off when leaving the room.
CFL stat:
I have a table lamp with a 10W CFL. It used 10W to turn on and first heat up, but now that it’s been on for several minutes, it has dropped to 8W. This makes me want to replace all my incandescent bulbs NOW.
I love this gadget and really wish more people cared about such things. Electricity is really just magic to most people, they don’t give any thought to where it comes from and never make the connection between it and things like oil. I wonder if I installed one of these if it would convince my roommate to turn the lights and his TV off when he goes to sleep. It would probably just make him hate me, though.
I love stuff like this and will probably totally buy one of these! Then I’ll be sad about how much power my fish tanks use.
Sammy said:How much was that device? I might want one.
haha i knew sammy would like it.
i’ve been trying to remember to unplug stuff when i’m not using it. like my sewing machine, my extra lamps, etc. it’s so easy to leave it in.. bleh.
also, don’t leave your chargers plugged in when you’re not using them! (i’m looking at you, ipods cell phones and portable gaming devices!)
my roommate used to get upset about the electric bill being high but he also routinely forgot to shut off his two CRT monitors when he wasn’t using them :)
christina said:Sammy said:How much was that device? I might want one.
haha i knew sammy would like it.
Christina is part of the problem, not the solution.
This is the most awesomest thing I’ve seen all day! Totally getting one. We should all get one and report back with our findings.
I fear I am staring at my biggest power drain (I’m talking to you, 30" Apple Cinema screen…).
Reg, I’m curious to see if your phone charger results are the same as this guy’s:
Reggie, did you ever notice any energy savings from your experiments? I just got a Kill A Watt myself and I’m experimenting with it. So far I’ve found that one of my fish tank filters draws 4x as much power as the other one and that the Nintendo Wii draws a significant current when it’s “off” (in the off state that allows it to flash blue if you have email or whatever). Also, the comcast cable box draws a lot of power even when it’s completely turned off. Those assholes.
It’s been tough to measure lately.
It’s colder, so the heat’s been on, and our electric bill is higher than normal as a result. Unfortunately there isn’t much else to do (besides freezing) that I can do to really test this out until the weather gets a little nier.
Did you end up unplugging or powering off any other random things like video games or chargers or appliances? PSE&G gives a month-by-month chart of energy usage so i can always compare to the same period last year and so forth.
I’m super curious to see how much this silly thing can save me. I’m already considering ditching my wasteful fish tank filter because I feel the one that draws less power does just as good a job and I could probably sell the wasteful one used for the cost of one of the more efficient ones brand new.
I’ve definitely become more conscious of leaving lights on when exiting the room, so that’s one thing.
I also set my PC to go to sleep after a couple hours of inactivity. The power draw goes from about 180W to about 15W, so that saves a ton of money per month, considering that my PC is only really used at night after work.
Because of the tangle of wires behind the entertainment center I haven’t had the chance to test out the video game consoles, LCD TV, or cable box yet. It’d also be nice if the readout was illuminated — that thing is way too hard to read sometimes.
I spent the afternoon testing everything I can find. I didn’t do major appliances like the fridge. I found that as far as stuff that’s on 100% of the time, my biggest power draws are:
1) Canister filters for my fish tanks
2) The fucking comcast cable box
3) The Wii in its semi-off mode
4) A security system console that I found plugged in down in the basement for a home security system that I do not use (it was here when i moved in)
John, why does your website ignore my carriage returns a lot of the time? I put returns between all the items in my list and it took them out. Fuck your buggy shit. Install PHPBB.